Discrete event simulation in the NEURON environment

Preprint available as neurocomputing2004.pdfA short introduction to how "integrate and fire" cells are implemented in NEURON. Network simulations that use only artificial spiking cells are extremely efficient, with runtimes proportional to the total number of synaptic inputs received and independent of the number of cells or problem time. These cells are completely interoperable with biophysical model neurons (oxymoronically called "real model neurons" by some)--i.e. they can receive synaptic inputs from, and deliver inputs to, any combination of artificial spiking neurons and/or biophysical model neurons. Also see our SFN 2002 poster discrete_event_poster.pdf.